Riders by Jilly Cooper - prequel to Rivals

[RedRobyn2021]

Decided to start listening to Riders by Jilly Cooper after watching Rivals

Quite shocked it's been written by a woman, the women are objectified, the men are rapey

Is it just me? Have you read it?

I looked it up and apparently Jilly Cooper wrote it in 1970, does this go some way to explaining why it's written like this?

I'm preserving with it, I'm on Chapter 13 but I think Rupert is a repulsive creep and can't understand why everyone is so obsessed with him

I read it after hearing other women rave about it and talk about how sexy Rupert was. Yes, it's dated, yes, attitudes in the workplace have changed, but he's abusive in any era and lives in a house full of dog poo and doesn't see it as a problem.

The scene with Helen and Billy and Rupert is rape, there's no other way to describe it.

Riders and Lace and similar were bonkbusters!
I was in my twenties in the eighties and worked in a company with lots of young people and an older management team. There were lots of affairs between older married men and young women. Constant drama of young women being moved to other sites, and crying in the ladies. There was no support for young women and lots of enabling of middle aged men. This was twenty years on from the women's liberation movement, but still a way to go.
I have 3 adult children. One watched Rivals as an example of business in the eighties!
Both my daughters have had support in work when older men have spoken inappropriately to them...more sexist than sexual.
What was the norm 40 years ago does shock me, as does school in the seventies.

When the book was written, the Kenya scene would have been legal. Marital rape wasn’t even a crime until 1994. Men harped on about their rights to sex in a marriage, it was seen as a women’s duty. This was supported by the church and older women etc etc

it is awful and thank goodness we have come so far (or have we ? A quick read of the relationship boards here or the American election result quickly has you questioning that? )

the book is a satire, a parody almost of that set back than. But although she glamourises things, it was very clear to me that Rupert was a shit. And that these things were awful.

There is a bit in Riders with Helen and Janey chatting and Helen is reflecting on how she can just acting normally with Helen after that awful night in Kenya. It’s what women experienced and still do.

And I think it’s important we know about it.

it’s certainly not worse than some of the glamourised gang culture we see on every day TV

I don’t think JC wrote any of the rutshire chronicles series to highlight misogyny or draw attention to the appalling treatment of women, other than highlighting animal cruelty which she was strongly opposed to, I think, sadly, she wrote from being a woman of the time, who accepted the sexism and poor treatment of women. before she hit the big time with the books we’re talking about, she wrote a book called something like “how to stay married” full of advice which would make you younger posters throw the book in the bin in disgust. Full of tips about pleasing your man.

She wrote about life as she knew it, she would have been subjected to the innuendos, groping and assumption that women were put on this planet to please the men, that was threaded through that era. She did leave a manuscript for a book on a train, which she wove into Rivals, so of course she drew on real life.

Her husband Leo had a long term affair with a fellow publisher, and Jilly and he reconciled after it came to light.

A friend’s dad used to be a driver for a local TV company, and he drove JC home one evening, hundreds of miles. she insisted that he stay at hers in the spare room rather than face a long return drive. He said that she was funny, warm and kind, swore like a trooper and the next morning she cooked him a full English breakfast, and sent him off with a flask of coffee for the trip.

JC is in her books, and so are the men she encountered. It’s great that they are rightly judged with fresh younger eyes, because it highlights what was wrong with society then.

@TammyJones interesting! I looked Riders up, it was made in 1993 so maybe didn't seem so problematic then? I wonder how true it was to the book but so not much that I'll pay to stream it :-)

I think what I struggle with, even though it's 70s/80s sexist/racist/homophobic culture amplified, is there doesn't seem to be a great deal of commentary or opinions expressed that it was fucking awful. Sure it's rooted in reality but it's really presented as totally fine and to be expected rather than challenged. The new Rivals TV series addresses that so is more palatable.

I think one thing is clear though, we're not as far as way from the mindset portrayed as we'd like to be/think we are. We just got better at hiding it i think, well, maybe not if the Trump election and nominations are anything to go by. Any chance in the later books Rupert resumed his political career in the USA, realised he was actually a natual citizen and then ran for President? Would explain a lot...

Exactly. I think it's hard for anyone not living in that era to understand. Doesn't mean we should ignore it and pretend it never existed.

What I find interesting is that today's readers are so disgusted by and highly judgemental of books from the past. I used to read books written in the 40's 50's and 60's when I was an 80's teen and young adult and found previous social mores and acceptable behaviour fascinating rather than horrifying. It's interesting to see what life was like in the past - it doesn't mean we want to emulate it!

Very interesting thread. I think one thing that hasn't been brought up is the effect that the JC books had on us as teenagers. I read them all as a 14-15 year old and, as an (undiagnosed) autistic girl with a crap male role model and some unhealthy relationship modelling at home, I internalised them, and other books of the time, as guides to what relationships should look like.

For many years I thought it was perfectly normal that a man should be quite rude and unpleasant at the beginning of a relationship, for example. One example that comes to mind is George Hungerford telling his much, much younger and less powerful lover, Flora, to "shut oop" and "stop taking the piss" the first time they get together- and he's supposed to be hopelessly in love with her!

I don't blame JC and her ilk, but it's definitely food for thought. I wonder if she's ever spoken about this?

I'm always bemused by readers who get on their high horses when characters in books dont turn out to be perfect little angels with modern attitudes who never put a foot wrong. Where's the story in that? Life and people are not perfect.

Let's hope they never read Wuthering Heights 😆 one of my favourite books.

Op you said yourself that you didn't call out a man who slapped your arse, but have a problem with women who didnt call men out in the 80s

I think at the time these were the accepted models of behaviour and power, and we didn't question them. Sex abuse in the church was perfectly normal, snogging your teacher was perfectly normal and a romantic story line on Grange Hill, sleeping with older men was seen as a bit of an achievement.

All of the previous examples about working in an office are bang on. No one complained - you've had got fired, or fondled by the CEO!

I was surprised recently talking to my young adult children that they don't get groped in clubs anymore. But it was the mark of a good evening in my day...

Frankly I don't think a lot of women particularly minded it. I didn't. I was sexually assaulted and yes raped when I was younger. Some of those incidents were traumatic and some were not, particularly. That's the honest truth.

I felt more uncomfortable with Disney's Beauty and the Beast than JC! I mean that bloke's obviously an angry fucking animal.... but we were still supposed to want to marry him to redeem him....

I suppose you are just so used to the trauma of your time, and if it isn't labelled as trauma, it's hard to identify. When I read Victorian novels and everyone has several babies and most of them die, I cannot possibly fathom why everyone wasn't fighting for better public health...

People are very weird about age gap relationships now, even with the smallest of gaps. It has been quite normal and accepted previously. There was 18 years between my beloved aunt and uncle and it was never, ever remarked on as unusual or 'creepy' (the current mantra).

I doubt Dame Jilly will comment and neither should she, she's 87 and that's how it was back then, as many of us who lived through it have attested. It doesn't make it right, of course not but it was reality. Anyone wondering how Mohammed Al Fayed got away with it? See below...

I think we should also remember that Rupert is a fictional character and was an amalgam of 3 different RL men Jilly knew.

At the event at The Southbank Centre where Jilly and Alex Hassell were on the stage Alex Hassell said that at one point he asked Jilly whether Rupert should seem repentant about something or other and Jilly said "no, no, no, Rupert never apologises" - that's how the character was written.

I mean, if we're going to talk about what was 'normal' in the 80s:

Most people smoked, everywhere, trains, planes, buses, restaurants
Flashers were commonplace
Sexual harassment was rife as already mentioned on this thread
Rape in marriage was entirely LEGAL until 1992
You didn't have to wear a seatbelt until 1983
Section 28 said schools couldn't teach about same sex attraction
Until 1990 women were NOT taxed independently of their husbands if they were married

Exactly this. And if you were very young in the 70s/80s, it all felt wildly glamorous. I had a very dull, tame, suburban life..... the most intoxicating part of these books wasn't the sex, it was the upper class lifestyle. Jill is absolutely brilliant on class, tbh.

I hadn't linked that scene to the fact that rape in marriage was legal at the time. Food for thought.

What really gets me about that scene is women I know who have read the book and didn't see that scene as a rape.

I mean, I don't think she should apologise or anything- she was a reflection of social mores rather than the arbiter of them- I would just be interested to hear what her thoughts on the subject are nowadays.

I was surprised recently talking to my young adult children that they don't get groped in clubs anymore. But it was the mark of a good evening in my day...

😆😆 haha yes you'd turn around to see what he looked like, and if he was pretty fit you'd think your lucks in and hope he bought you a Malibu and coke !

And, yes, showjumping was a big deal in the 1970s.... always on the TV, and don't forget we only had 3 channels. I'd never so much as sat on a horse, but had a poster on my wall. All the riders were household names.

The point about marital rape being illegal is true except that it isn't her husband who rapes her.

Also I think JC has spoken recently about being assaulted herself when she was younger and using the experience as a basis for one of the storylines - possibly the Daysee Butler one.

Lol at all the "shock" on here.

It was a book of its time.

The whole point of RCB is that he was generally a complete cunt but had moments of generosity and goodheartedness and eventually redeems himself by marriage to Taggie.

I never understood the love for Jake Lovell who marries for money treats his DW like shit. Horrible, bitter little man.

Even Helen Campbell Black was a horrible character, vain and spoilt.

I think the whole point of the early books was that no one character was entirely good or bad. They were all flawed but somehow likeable.

I'm rereading Riders as well and had forgotten how much Jilly Cooper hated fat women. Tory was 11 stones and Jilly Cooper wrote about her as if she was about 30 stones.

But again it wasn't JC who hated fat women. That was the uncontested narrative of the time, across all aspects of culture. I remember reading an academic paper on photography which stated "No fat on women must ever be visible: this is the only hard and fast rule." And so it was!

Jilly has said that the Daysee scene was based on something that happened to her. Any of us who lived through that time aren't surprised.

There was a famous case where a judge said a woman who was raped was guilty of "contributory negligence" because she was wearing a short skirt. It was outrageous.